One year after Newtown: Are area schools safer?

Monday

Dec 16, 2013 at 6:00 AM

By Elaine Thompson TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

As school districts began assessing their security procedures after the Sandy Hook school mass murders a year ago, Milford Schools Superintendent Robert A. Tremblay wondered how his staff could fend off an active shooter if they didn't know the sound of a gunshot.

So, Mr. Tremblay dedicated a professional day for 400 teachers, administrators and staff to be trained in what to do if a school is besieged by someone who is bent on causing harm.

"We had a police officer dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt who pulled up in a van and came in the school and started firing blanks," said Mr. Tremblay. "I thought it was important for staff to move beyond a lock-down situation. I thought it was important to react to a shooter and know what a gunshot sounds like."

The Milford school district hired Franklin-based Synergy Solutions Inc., which provides emergency management training to schools, colleges, hospitals and corporations, to give staff the most up-to-date training on how to best respond to incidents like the one on Dec. 14, 2012, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. In that tragic case, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, a mentally ill resident of the small community, shot his way into the school and killed 20 children and six staff members before killing himself.

Most school districts have not gotten such advanced training as Milford.

Many ended up reviewing plans in place, which primarily focus on locking down a school until police arrive, which is what happened at Sandy Hook and Friday in Colorado, where a teen gunman opened fire at a high school.

Jason P. Brennan, president and CEO of Synergy Solutions and a Medway police sergeant, said he teaches schools a more integrated system where there are options, "not lock-down, period." His system, based on teachings from Homeland Security, uses the three L's: Lock-down, Leave and Live.

"Most people think of evacuation as a very linear movement, like a fire drill. You move together down the hallway and out the building. It may not be that simple," he said. "You may have to escape by any means."

The "live" component, also referred to as "fight back," is a very controversial piece, he said. "It's used in very, very specific cases. You may have no other choice but to take action to protect yourself because you're confronted by someone who is trying to directly harm you."

Robert F. Pezzella, school safety liaison for the Worcester Public Schools, said a reassessment of the district's safety and security protocols after the Sandy Hook tragedy shows that there are a lot of good practices in place, but there are other things that can be done. He and others charged with keeping schools safe acknowledge that a person who is determined to get into a building can likely do so. The Sandy Hook shooter shot out a glass window at the front of the school to gain entrance.

"We've determined that we've been very much proactive to make schools as safe as they can be in the climate we live in, where a person with a mental health issue wants to come into a school and cause havoc," he said "We try to prevent that and to be able to intervene swiftly to minimize the impact."

As with most school districts, there are security cameras and walkie-talkies in every Worcester public school. Exterior doors are kept locked. Any visitor to a school has to ring a buzzer on the outside of the door that will alert the front office. The visitor is asked to identify themselves and why they are at the school.

The district's crisis response procedures, distributed annually at school safety meetings, were reinforced after Sandy Hook. The plan requires the principal to immediately call 911 if a person with a weapon enters the building The principal then makes a building-wide announcement to lock down the school. The plan is to keep students and staff safe in barricaded rooms until police arrive.

Worcester's Mr. Pezzella added, "Right now in most districts, the standardized response to an active shooter, as evidenced by Sandy Hook, is to lock down and wait for law enforcement. However, I've been to training where law enforcement authorities say the first procedure is to lock down. The second procedure is for our teachers and administrators to react or fight back, and the last option is to evacuate if you have an opportunity to do it safely, rather than sit in the classroom and become vulnerable to a very sick active shooter."

"Our policy continues to be lock-down. The superintendent has not decided at this time that we will change our policies and procedures related to an active shooter in the building," he said. "But, if the staff or administrators make a spontaneous decision that they can get out, obviously we would be very supportive."

Mr. Pezzella said he would like to see more walkie-talkies in the schools to provide communication among staff in different parts of the building to help determine if it is safe to evacuate. He also thinks building more modern schools with state-of-the-art security systems would be a major advantage.

In the meantime, he said staff will continue to be trained on the importance of paying attention to threats made toward students or the school. The district established a student school safety center, following the 1998 school shootings in Jonesboro, Ark., in which two boys, ages 11 and 13, fatally shot four classmates and a teacher and wounded 10 other students. Before, the district's only recourse for a student who threatened harm was the standard suspension and regular counseling.

At the center, there is an extensive interview with the student and their parents, including whether there are weapons in the home. The student is placed in an intensive three-day program to assess the risk of the student to carry through on the threat. The student is also provided counseling and a decision is eventually made about the student's next school placement.

If the student is determined to be volatile, other actions can be taken including getting emergency mental health experts involved or the police. The student is followed-up on for up to six months.

"We feel that's been a very effective deterrent," said Mr. Pezzella. "Even though the Sandy Hook shooter was 20, a lot of other school shooters have been former students or current students."

Clinton School Superintendent Terrance Ingano said the only change made to the district's safety policy since Sandy Hook was to begin locking classroom doors at the elementary school. Doors to classrooms at the middle and high schools were previously locked, he said. In the Sandy Hook case, Adam Lanza entered unlocked classrooms to shoot students and teachers.

Contact Elaine Thompson at elaine.thompson@telegram.com

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